FABLES

Oxana Creanga, PhD, senior lecturer

ALLEGORY
Allegory - a narrative, in prose or verse, in which the agents
and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived
(invented) by the author to make coherent sense on the "literal," or
primary, level of signification, and at the same time to signify a
second, correlated order of signification.
The word allegory derives from the Greek allegoria
("speaking otherwise");
An allegory involves using many interconnected symbols or
allegorical figures in such as way that in nearly every element of
the narrative has a meaning beyond the literal level, i.e.,
everything in the narrative is a symbol that relates to other symbols
within the story. The allegorical story, poem, or play can be read
either literally or as a symbolic statement about a political, spiritual,
or psychological truth.
ALLEGORY
Allegoric texts act as an extended metaphor in which the plot or events
reveal a meaning beyond what occurs in the text, creating a moral,
spiritual, or even political meaning.
The act of interpreting a story as if each object in it had an allegorical
meaning is called allegoresis.

Two main types:

(1) Historical and political allegory, in which the characters and actions
that are signified literally in their turn represent, or "allegorize" historical
personages and events.
(2) Allegory of ideas, in which the literal characters represent concepts and
the plot allegorizes an abstract doctrine or thesis. In this type, the central
device is the personification of abstract entities such as virtues, vices,
states of mind, modes of life, and types of character. In explicit allegories,
such reference is specified by the names given to characters and places.
ALLEGORY
Allegory is a narrative strategy which may be employed in any
literary form or genre: poems, novels, or plays.
Famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress (1678), in which the hero Everyman flees the City of
Destruction and travels through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City.
The entire narrative represents the average human soul's pilgrimage
through temptation and doubt to reach salvation in heaven. Other
important allegorical works include mythological allegories like
Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche.
More recent, non-mythological allegories include J. Swift's
Gulliver's Travels and G. Orwell's Animal Farm (a fable too).
FABLE
The early definition of Aesopic fables: “A fictitious story
picturing a truth”
picturing = metaphorical representation

The fable (also called an apologue) is a short allegorical

narrative, in prose or verse, featuring animals, men, gods, and
even inanimate objects as characters in a plot that illuminates a
moral truth about the principles of human condition or human
behavior.
actions – natural;
agents – imaginary.

N.B. Fables can be written in prose or verse.

FABLE ELEMENTS
 Idea
 Image
 Expression
The idea is in the image, the image is its metaphorical expression; the
metaphor is in the narrative, which is its formal expression.
The truth can be formulated as a general statement. The metaphorical
expressions can be simple, memorable, ready for application:
 Sour grapes - people belittle what they cannot get;
 The lion’s share - the biggest part of something;
 A wolf in sheep’s clothing - a person who hides the fact that they are
evil, with a pleasant and friendly appearance;
 An ass in a lion’s skin – pretender.
FABLES
Story types as materials used in fables:
 Fairy tale
 Etiological nature-myths
 Animal stories
 Amusing action
 Myths about gods
 Novella
 Debates between two rivals
 Accounts of circumstances in which some aphoristic or witty
remarks were made.
FABLE

A moral is usually, though not always, explicitly stated, by

either the narrator or one of the characters, at the end of a fable in
the form of an epigram.
The insight produced by the fable can outlast the tale’s
particulars, e.g. the term “sour grapes,” which refers to Aesop’s
fable about the fox that concludes that the grapes he cannot reach
must (therefore) be sour and consequently undesirable - the
expressed moral is that human beings belittle what they cannot get.
A person can learn practical lessons from the fictional antics
(absurd or grotesque acts) in a fable. The lesson learned is not
allegorical. The reader learns the lesson as an exemplum - an
example of what one should or should not do.
FABLES

The beast fable (bestiary) is a very ancient form that existed in

Egypt, India, and Greece.
In Western cultures fables derive mainly from the stories
attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave of the sixth century B.C.
Foxes and wolves, called by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Everyman’s Metaphor” for cunning and cruelty, appear often as
characters in fables chiefly because, in the human world, such
predatory cunning and cruelty are able to get around restraints of
justice and authority.
James Thurber, the 20th-century American humorist and
fabulist, states that fables unmask the “beast in me”.
FABLES
 Geoffrey Chaucer's “ The Nun's Priest's Tale ”;
 Joe Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus Stories - beast fables, told in
southern African-American dialect, whose origins have been traced
to folktales in the oral literature of West Africa that feature a
trickster like Uncle Remus' Brer Rabbit
 James Thurber, Fables for Our Time (1940) - a “recent” set of
short fables;
 George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945) - an expanded beast fable
into a sustained satire on the political and social situation in the mid-
twentieth century.
FABLES: AN EXAMPLE
The Lark and Its Young
A mother lark had a nest of young birds in a field of ripe grain. One day when she
came home, she found the little birds much excited. They reported that they had
heard the owners of the field say it was time to call the neighbors to help them
gather the grain, and they begged the mother lark to take them away. “Do not
worry”, she said, “if he is depending upon his neighbors, the work won’t begin
today. But listen carefully to what the farmer says each time he comes and report to
me.”
The next day, again while their mother was getting their food, the farmer came and
exclaimed, “This field needs cutting badly, I’ll call my relatives over to help me.
We’ll get them here tomorrow.”
The excited young birds reported this news to their mother upon her return. “Never
mind,” she said, “I happen to know these relatives are busy with their own grain;
they won’t come. But continue to keep your ears open and tell me what you hear.”
The third day, when the farmer came, he saw the grain was getting overripe, and
turning to his son, said, “We can’t wait longer; we’ll hire some men tonight, and
tomorrow we’ll begin cutting.” When the mother lark heard these words, she said to
her children, “Now we’ll have to move; when people decide to do things
themselves instead of leaving such work to others, you may know they mean
business.”
FABLES: THEMES
The narrative of the fable drives towards the closing moral statement, the fable’s theme:
 The early bird gets the worm
 Where there’s a will there’s a way
 Work hard and always plan ahead for lean
 Times
 Charity is a virtue.
 Pride
 Laziness
 Flattery
 Cunning
 You can achieve more by working together than by fighting
 You are stronger as a team than as individuals
 Friendship, mutual assistance
 Differing opinions
 The difficulty of pleasing everyone
 Balancing work and leisure time
 Gratitude
 Being content with what you have.
THEMES. PLOT STRUCTURE. STYLE
Plot is overtly fictitious as the point of the story is its message,
rather than an attempt to convince the reader of a real setting or
characters.
The events are used as a narrative metaphor for the ethical
truth being promoted.
There are usually few characters and often only two who are
portrayed as simple stereotypes rather than multidimensional
heroes or villains. Narrative structure is short (sometimes just a few
sentences) and simple and there is limited use of description.
Action and dialogue are used to move the story on because the
all-important moral is most clearly evident in what the main
characters do and say.
Many fables use rich vocabulary, imagery and patterned
language common in traditional tales. The shorter the fable, the
simpler its use of language.
FABLES. CHARACTERS

The main characters are often named in the title (The Town
Mouse and the Country Mouse, The North Wind and the Sun, etc).
They are also frequently animals, another subtle way of signaling
the fictional, ‘fabulous’ nature of the story and its serious purpose.
Animal characters speak and behave like human beings, allowing
the storyteller to make cautionary points about human behavior
without pointing the finger at real people.
FABLES TEND TO USE:
 formulaic beginnings that establish setting and character very
quickly - e.g. ‘One day a farmer was going to market...’ ‘A hungry
fox was sitting by the roadside...’ ‘In a field, one spring morning...’
 connectives to explain or show cause and effect - e.g. ‘If you will
give me...’ ‘So the wolf...’
 temporal connectives that hold the narrative together and give it a
chronological shape - e.g. ‘One morning...as he was... first he
saw...then he saw...’ ‘When winter came...’ ‘And then the
grasshopper understood...’
 simple dialogue between two main characters, often questions and
answers - e.g. ‘Why do you howl so loudly?’; or statements that
reflect on a situation - e.g. ‘You seem to have a wonderful life here
in the town.’ ‘My feathers may not be beautiful but they keep me
warm in winter.’
PARABLE, FABLE, ALLEGORY
A parable is a story or short narrative designed to reveal
allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson,
psychological reality, or general truth. A parable always teaches
by comparison / analogy with real or literal occurrences -
especially "homey" everyday occurrences a wide number of people
can relate to.
PARABLE, FABLE, ALLEGORY

Examples of parables are included in the synoptic Gospels, such

as "The Prodigal Son" and "The Good Samaritan”. Here is Jesus’
terse parable of the fig tree (smochin), Luke 13:6-9:
He spake (archaic, past tense of speak) also this parable: A certain man
had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon,
and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, “Behold,
these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it
down; why cumbereth (to render useless; to make vain) it the ground?" And
he answering said unto him, "Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig
about it, and dung it. And if it bears fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou
shalt (archaic, second person singular present tense of shall) cut it down."
PARABLE, FABLE, ALLEGORY

Unlike fables, a parable uses human agents. Parables

generally show less interest in the storytelling and more in the
analogy they draw between a particular instance of human behavior
and human behavior at large.
Parable and fable have their roots in preliterate oral cultures,
and both are means of handing down traditional folk wisdom. Their
styles differ, however. Fables tend toward detailed, sharply observed
social realism (which eventually leads to satire), while the simpler
narrative surface of parables gives them a mysterious tone and
makes them especially useful for teaching spiritual values.
PARABLE, FABLE, ALLEGORY
To distinguish more clearly, analyze the old Arab fable:
A frog and a scorpion met one day on the bank of the River Nile, which
they both wanted to cross. The frog offered to ferry the scorpion over on his
back provided the scorpion promised not to sting him. The scorpion agreed so
long as the frog would promise not to drown him. The mutual promises
exchanged, they crossed the river. On the far bank the scorpion stung the frog
mortally.
"Why did you do that?" croaked the frog, as it lay dying.
"Why?" replied the scorpion, "We're both Arabs, aren't we?"
If we substitute for a frog a "Mr. Goodwill" or a "Mr.
Prudence," and for the scorpion "Mr. Treachery" or "Mr. Two-
Face," and make the river any river and substitute for "We're both
Arabs!" "We're both men . . ." we turn the fable [which illustrates
human tendencies by using animals as illustrative examples ] into an
allegory [a narrative in which each character and action has symbolic
meaning].
PARABLE, FABLE, ALLEGORY

If we turn the frog into a father and the scorpion into a son
(boatman and passenger) and we have the son say "We're both
sons of God, aren't we?", then we have a parable (if a rather cynical
one) about the wickedness of human nature and the sin of parricide
(the act of killing either of one's parents).

References:
Cuddon, J. A. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory.
New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Haase, D. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales.
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms.
Assignment:
Comparative Analysis of the Fable “Grasshopper and Ant” in English,
Romanian, Russian.